"Evolution is not irrelevant. Did not man evove from a primordial goo to the sentient creature he is today.
Dare I say that without evolution there would be no progress since the dawn of time. The invention of the wheel is a direct evolutionairy…"

"Joseph - OK I get what you are saying - that arguing about moral values is emotional rather than logical - although like Sam Harris says, science can determine moral values - as it's something we can observe and learn about"

"Those aren't really logical arguments; they're emotional ones. He argues against the morality in the Bible. He's going for emotional impact, not speaking to their reason.
He doesn't really make an argument in…"

"I didn't see the emotional connection as such - I saw that he started a conversation with them and then gave them evidence why what he said wasn't logical - and gave good argument. Which is very good, and I obviously knows his stuff.…"

"I think what can be argued is that although I see your point, it really only makes sense in the confines of a debate or discussion on the question 'does god exist'. In the real world, learning the theory of evolution is far more important…"

"Doesn't matter if they're being so or not. That's the impression given by the name they've chosen. This is an image issue.
We already have positive labels: skeptic, rationalist, secular humanist, and…"

"
Stuff like one of my favorite Matt Dillahunty rants:
Similarly, Dan Barker makes a lot of the immorality sort of arguments, in his latest book. You need to attack a theist emotionally, before they'll listen to…"

"Well that's very prejudice isn't it... Go and have a look - I think they were trying to change the image such as the use of Gay for homosexual - Bright replaces Atheist. The oppose of Gay is Straight, the opposite of Bright is Super -…"

Thoughts

'If one wishes to form a true estimate of the full grandeur of religion, one must keep in mind what it undertakes to do for men. It gives them information about the source and origin of the universe, it assures them of protection and final happiness amid the changing vicissitudes of life, and it guides their thoughts and motions by means of precepts which are backed by the whole force of its authority.'

'Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.'

Sigmund Freud

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes... A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

Bertrand Russell

'Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheist’ is a term that should not ever exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist’. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to ‘never doubt the existence of God’ should be obliged to present evidence for his existence-and, indeed, for his BENEVOLENCE, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day.'

Sigmund's Blog

In the beginning was the word, and the word was, like all words, a human invention, to label something that humans want to label. This gave shape to a concept that eventually led to an ontological fallacy (God-the-greatest-thing-I-can-imagine does indeed exist as a concept - that's the whole point - but that doesn't mean that God-the-greatest-thing-I-can-imagine also exists) ...

Humans create religions in an attempt to make sense of the world and encourage social stability. They base their ideas on current scientific/intellectual and moral standards, combining current ideas about the world with what they consider plausible speculation about the unknown (and it is precisely 'the unknown' that they desire to explain or have explained).

In the case of constructing an explanation for the origin of the universe and human life, and what happens after death, in the… Continue

Time and again theists present atheism as a ‘belief’ – reflecting the necessary ‘faith’ of their own standpoint. Aside from Sam Harris’s excellent point (‘Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheist’ is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist’.’), this raises a number of very important points.